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Grieving Americans Meet Afghan Victims of U.S. Bombings
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| U.S. relative
of Sept. 11 victim meets with Afghan victims of U.S. bombings |
KABUL, Jan. 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A group of grieving Americans who lost relatives in the September 11 terrorist strikes in the United States shared their experiences here Tuesday with an Afghan family who were civilian victims of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan a month later, news agencies reported.
The four Americans, who arrived early Tuesday, went to an apartment block in a rundown Kabul suburb bearing gifts for Mohammad Shaher and his family whose large house was destroyed on October 17 in a U.S. bombing raid, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"I am sorry, I am so very sorry," American Rita Laser, 70, whose brother died on the 24th floor of the World Trade Center, told Shaher's wife with tears in her eyes, in a report Wednesday by the British daily, the
Independent.
Najiba Shaher, five months pregnant at the time, was trapped under the rubble and suffered paralysis of facial nerves that causes her giddiness if she looks up.
Her face is covered with scars, the Independent report said, and she finds it difficult to stand or to talk after suffering severe injuries to her head, arms and legs and spending weeks in the hospital.
The 38-year-old expectant mother of three was what officials call "collateral damage," the
Independent said, when a bomb plunged into her home, after which a bulldozer was used to scoop her out of the rubble.
Her two sons and a daughter were in the house at the time of the mid-morning bombing but escaped injury. The baby, due next month, is apparently unharmed.
"Her life, all her dreams and ambition, had been destroyed. My children and I are just glad that she is alive," Mohammad Shaher, who according to CNN was imprisoned and tortured during the Soviet occupation for not joining the communist party, was quoted in the
Independent report as saying.
"We do not blame you for what had happened, you too have suffered greatly. But no one has ever explained to me why my home, in the middle of a residential area, nowhere near the military, was bombed."
According to neighbors, the target of the bombing was a nearby school where Taliban members had set up headquarters. Mohammad's father built the Shaher's home, according to a CNN report, 50 years ago, in an upper class Kabul neighborhood.
"This was clearly a mistaken bombing," said Medea Benjamin, founder of the Global Exchange non-governmental organization (NGO) that set up the visit in a bid to establish bonds between the families of American and Afghan victims.
"We want to draw the attention to the public in the U.S. to the extent of civilian casualties in the bombing campaign. The U.S. government has done so much to look after families and victims of the September 11 attacks," she said. "All we ask is that they do the same for innocent Afghan victims."
She hoped the exchange would allow Afghans to see "that Americans are not indifferent to their plight, and that Americans will get a better understanding of the tragedy of the Afghan people."
Shaher has written to the U.S. government asking for compensation for his house and to bear his wife's medical expenses, but so far has not had a response.
Music professor Derrill Bodley, from California, said he had shared the grief of losing his daughter, Deora, in the September 11 terrorist atrocities.
Deora had been on United Airlines Flight 93, which was apparently destined to be smashed into the White House when passengers overpowered the hijackers, causing the aircraft to plough into the earth and kill all on board.
"The meeting with the Shaher family was very emotional at times," he told AFP. Shaher had told him: "I am sorry to hear about your daughter." He had replied: "I am happy to meet yours."
He hoped the publicity surrounding their visit "will give the Americans something to look at in terms of what kind of things they can do to help the innocent victims of this conflict here."
"I'm trying to do my part and do what I think my daughter would have me do."
And Laser said that when she returns to the United States "I am going to tell the American people that we owe it to these people to help feed them and bring them back to something like normalcy."
Asked if she approved of the U.S. bombing campaign, Laser replied, "I have no idea what should be done or whether it was the right thing to do. All I can do is what I have to do - try to bring some comfort to the people here."
Laser's brother, Abe Zelmanowitz, was trapped in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 because he chose to stay with his paraplegic friend who could not get out.
"There is no heroism in bombing innocent civilians. So many people, especially politicians, seemed so keen to get angry on our behalf," Laser was quoted in the
Independent report as saying.
"It seemed the only people not in a rage were the families of the victims. We had too much grief to cope with for that. And I see the same thing in this family, there is grief, but no destructive rage."
The group also includes Deora Bodley's stepsister Eva Rupp, and Kelly Campbell, sister-in-law of Craig Amundson who was killed in the attack on the Pentagon.
During their visit, the Americans are also expected to meet Abdul Mohamad, who lost five members of his family in a bombing raid.
The Independent reported that the group would also meet U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as visiting members of Congress, and the interim Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai.
Other meetings are being arranged with children wounded in the bombardments, Women's Affairs Minister Sima Samar and NGOs working in Kabul.
More than 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Although no official figures are available, NGOs working in Kabul estimate several thousand Afghans lost their lives in the retaliatory U.S. bombing raids.
An independent report by University of New Hampshire professor Marc Herold, who has been keeping a tally of civilian deaths according to media and eyewitness reports since Oct. 7, says that the Afghan civilian death toll is already higher than that of Sept. 11.
Herold said that by the start of the new year, roughly 4,000 Afghan civilians had been killed in U.S. bombings.
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